


Truth in the Mirror

by Sine_Timore



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, captain america: civil war - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Marvel 616/MCU Crossover, STONY Bingo 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 12:20:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15509742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sine_Timore/pseuds/Sine_Timore
Summary: Steve can’t run away from his duty. In a way, neither can Tony, any version of him.





	Truth in the Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to SilverinStars and Seriah for the Beta. You guys are amazing :D

Steve brooded at the Blue-eyed Tony sitting across the table, with what he felt was very well-deserved trepidation. Steve had accepted many strange and inexplicable things since waking up in the 21st century. Many good, like equal rights and education, some things that were strange, like people with green hair. Steve had bravely learned to accept the ideology behind the thought, ‘If you can think of it, it probably exists’. 

The idea of the Multi-Verse existing, where he'd become Captain America, went into the ice and woke up and became an Avenger, again, was a stretch. Even by his imagination.

Blue-eyed Tony sat across, hands folded over his chest restlessly tapping his fingers on his forearm, giving Steve an extremely familiar defensive look. He seemed to want to say something, but promptly thought the better of it. Clearly the Steves and Tonys didn’t have it easy, in any universe.

Steve took a sip of some of that terrible beer Sam had gotten, less for wanting to drink and more for wanting to have something to do with his hands. Stark looked at him covertly, as though sneaking a glance and rapidly turned his head away when Steve noticed, peeling the label of his own bottle, which he still hadn’t drunk from, and that wasn’t even the start of everything strange he had seen that day. Steve couldn’t help but feel he was being compared to a certain standard and found wanting. Terribly. 

Finally, Stark seemed to win some kind of personal battle. He upended the chair and moved to stand by the window, looking at the wide stretch of nothing around them. There was no view, Steve already knew that, just barren lands stretching on as far as he could see. Steve didn’t bother putting his chair back up straight. It was a hot, summer afternoon, and Steve couldn’t muster up the required energy it would take to nudge it up with his foot.

Stark remained silent and Steve let him stew. Experience had taught him better than to interrupt Tony when he was in one of his melancholic moods, it wouldn’t get him anywhere apart from getting his head ripped off. 

Stark walked back, pulled the chair out, and sat on it. He was moving with a jerky chaotic grace that sent a pang of longing through Steve’s body, it had been so long since he'd seen his Tony, not that it would make a difference. Tony would never agree to be on a team with Steve anyway. 

"I don’t drink” Stark said, loudly as though he was making a statement for the universe to hear, unconsciously pulling Steve away from his lamenting. He chucked the bottle at the kitchenette and missed. The bottle cracked into a wall and seeped dully into Steve’s carpet. Steve wasn't looking for an apology, and Stark didn’t offer one. He daintily pulled his feet off the ground and threw them over the table, like the typical city boy he was.

He looked down, his fringe covering his eyes. He probably didn’t like Steve staring at him like he was some kind of botched up experiment. But Steve had no idea what to do! He couldn't help but feel awkward. What exactly do you say to the alternate universe counterpart of someone you had beat up and left for dead? Steve couldn’t even talk to his Tony, let alone someone from another universe with his own special kind of terrible baggage.

Stark finally sighed and looked up. “What happened?” he asked, breaking the awkward silence first. Steve stared across at Stark, his usually fluid eloquence packing its bags and leaving to Alaska. It always happened when Tony looked at him like that.

He took a moment to observe him. Stark did look a little worse for wear. He was pale and thin, his wrists bony - hands shaking ever so slightly. Was he afraid of Steve? Or was it some kind of injury he had sustained? Stark promptly put his hands in his pockets, and met his eyes, cornered - challenging. 

Steve was immediately reminded of himself after he had first woken in this century, he’d been defensive and short too. Terrified of everything strange. Stark though, he seemed completely proficient in pretending that everything was alright, when everything around him was clearly on fire. Steve suddenly felt his heart go out to the man. Surely, he could say something? Stark had been cordial so far. Steve, at the very least, owed him the same.

“We fought,” he began, “We hurt each other. I lied, and maybe he did a bit too” Steve grit his teeth, before sighing in resignation. We hid things from each other. "Waited too long to tell certain truths, and now it is too late"

Stark looked grim, A flash of frustration and dark rage flashed through his eyes, so fast, Steve was certain he’d imagined it. He wished he had had happier news to give Stark, well, he should’ve probably have thought of that before, and anyway, Steve was done lying to Tony. Any version of him.

Stark looked at Steve incredulously. “You’re fighting already? You’re barely what 30?” he asked, “Even Steve and I didn’t start fighting until much later.” He rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair, messing it up, rubbing a frustrated hand over his face. “What happened?” he repeated. “And don’t give me any of those Steve Roger’s standard stoic spiel.”

Steve stared at Stark, reminded a bit of his own Tony for the first time. Both of them had the same spectacular ability to get under Steve’s skin and dissect him. Well, it's wasn’t like he had anything to lose, and Stark would leave soon enough anyway. “There were some documents,” Steve started, “regarding the regulation of Superheroes. Tony signed. I didn’t” He was cut off by a bitter laugh, “Of fucking course, you didn’t,” Stark said, sounding bitter. “I assume that’s why you’re sulking off in the middle of nowhere in a fucking desert? Where no one can find you?” 

Steve shrugged, not bothered about the place enough to correct him, and not invested enough in the conversation to try. 

Stark ran a frustrated hand through his hair again; it was much longer than his Tony kept it, Steve absently noted. Stark’s hair was messy and all over the place, not perfectly coiffed and under control like Tony’s always was, a million personas to project, even to his friends.

“I know how this goes,” Stark said, bluntly interrupting Steve’s internal monologuing. Stark took a deep breath, “In my universe,” he begins haltingly. “In my universe, we fought the same war. We fought it to the bitter end, said and did things to each other, that we knew we could never come back from. We were as self-righteous as it got. We wouldn’t be stopped. Maybe in our darker moments we’d even admit that we _couldn’t_ be stopped”

“We tried not to make it personal of course” Stark looked at Steve. Elbows on the table - hands rubbing each other nervously. “But that never works out for us does it? You and I; It always becomes personal”

Steve nodded vigorously. Oh Boy! Did he know that. 

As he continued, Stark choked out, “I got you killed, Steve. I got you killed and then, and then I got you back… I’d always thought, Well it can’t get worse than that, can it ? and we survived.”

He stopped. Head in his hands. “But it did. It got _so much_ worse.” Steve really couldn't think of what could be worse than fighting each other so hard that one of them had died. 

Stark looked at Steve, blue eyes glinting in some distant memory, “We never talked about it after,” he whispered half to himself. “Not really. We fought about it a whole lot, but never… we never really talked about _it._ ”

Stark got up and walked back to the window, wrapping his thin hands over too prominent ribs, a sign of vulnerability his Tony would never have shown him. Steve from the bottom of his heart felt a visceral jealousy for this other Steve. He’d had to go through the entire ice thing too, but he’d woken up to people who’d grown to care for him. Who saw him as something beyond a symbol. He looked at Stark, staring numbly off into space, even the memory of losing Rogers seemed to hurt him, regardless of whether or not the other Steve was currently alive.

Stark faced the barren grounds outside as he continued, “We made up, though. Believe it or not, we did. Never talked about it, weren’t as close as before, but we still managed to patch things up. To share living space again...”  
Despite his words, Stark looked even more bitter now. Had Steve lied about Howard and Maria again? “Of course, then tragedy struck, and now we have…- I have crossed some lines I can never...” he stopped, rapidly wiping his eyes, Steve looked away, politely.

Stark stumbled back to the chair, falling into it weakly, covering his face in his hands. “Stupid. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid,” he muttered quietly. Steve could have gone his entire life without wondering what the rest of them where if Tony Stark was stupid. Stark shook his head, running his sleeves over his face.

He looked back at Steve. “My Steve is currently a Nazi,” he spat.” And I am brain dead. The last time we spoke, he asked me when the last time was I drank. The last time he came to speak to me, he told me about all the different ways he was going to ruin everything I had ever built, all the time while mocking _MY_ Steve for his heart." Stark shook his head, clearly incensed on his behalf. Steve strongly suspected it wasn't just Roger's heart that had been mocked.

Stark stood up and walked around the table to Steve, placing a hand on his shoulder “The way I see it, you aren’t that far gone. Not yet.” He stood straighter, no longer hunched onto himself, He looked different and Steve was jarred by the abrupt change; from Stark’s too thin wrists and the exhausted eyes peering at him from a too young face to an easy regality that he displayed.

“Don’t be us Kid. You don’t want to be us,” he said quietly, gently squeezing his shoulder. 

Steve surprised himself by desperately grabbing onto his hand, salvation beaconing. “You don’t know the things we’ve done, what I’ve done.” Steve felt impossibly young and vulnerable, with this man he’d just met. Who’d popped into his living room, inexplicably. He’d never wanted to fight alien armadas or become a part of a group of Super Powered Individuals. He wondered how the other Steve dealt with this. He wondered if he could ask. How the Steve that Stark spoke of in a tone of voice with poorly concealed awe bordering on reverence, measured up to the standard. Steve had the feeling that the Rogers probably _was_ the standard.

Stark knelt in front of Steve, taking his hands into his own.

“Steve listen to me” he said. “There’s nothing that your Tony will not forgive you for, If Steve had walked away from me the one time I needed him more than ever, I would forgive him,” he looked away “I did forgive him. Steve has forgiven me for lot worse, things I guarantee you can’t even imagine.” Stark looks at him, vivid blue eyes searing in his face. “You have a whole host of mistakes yet to make. It’s far from too late for you, You can fix this. You’re both alive and mostly sane. Talk. Learn to talk it out. You might’ve even learn something from each other.” he stood, and for the first time since arriving, smiled mischievously at Steve, “Besides you’ve only tried to kill each other once! Give him your hand, I promise you he’ll take it. EMP or not.”


End file.
